Critical Curriculum for Emergency Management Leaders: Three Essential Themes
Glen Woodbury
Director, WashingtonState Emergency Management Division
May 28, 2004
Emergency Management Higher Education Conference
Emergency Management Institute
Emmitsburg, MD
June 8-9, 2004
The function and discipline of emergency management has evolved significantly since its evolution from civil defense in the late 70’s and early 80’s. The evolution has accelerated significantly since the dawn of the millennium and the demands and expectations of a capable emergency management leader requires new tools and educational enhancements that were previously unnecessary, or at least not as critical as in today’s environment. While additional educational curriculum enhancements could conceivably cover the spectrum from anthropological studies to political science, there are three critical themes that must be addressed to ensure that the nation has effective emergency leaders: hazard and threat science, sociological and psychological considerations, and prevention/mitigation principles.
Hazard and Threat Science
Any experienced emergency manager could specify the principle hazards that threaten their community or jurisdiction. Most could even provide an above-layman’s background to the specifics of the threats and the science or history of the hazards. Unfortunately, much of this knowledge comes from either a post-emergency analysis of an event that just impacted their jurisdiction or a gradual series of presentations and programmatic updates on specific hazards that are prepared for over a period of time. Neither of these learning environments provides the deep and pre-event understanding of threats necessary for an emergency leader to effectively develop and implement strategic efforts to mitigate these threats and/or to prepare for the response and recovery from their consequences. Additionally, the depth of understanding across the spectrum of hazards facing a community, business, or jurisdiction is unbalanced. For example, a Pacific Northwest emergency manager may understand, in geological detail, the three major earthquake threats to the region, but may have little if any understanding of the finer points of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or “mad cow disease’.) Yet the consequence response complexity and consequences of the latter may cause as much, if not more, economic and government confidence damage to the jurisdiction as would a minor seismic event. A Midwestern emergency manager may be able to go into excruciating detail about the genesis and meteorology of tornado formation, but if asked about the strategic objectives of Al Qaeda and how this knowledge might guide critical infrastructure protection priorities, the response might be silence.
Emergency management leaders need an academic, not just experiential, knowledge base of the natural and manmade hazards that face their regions or facilities. They need to know the science behind the threats, not just the potential, operational consequences should these hazards manifest themselves. The most effective curriculum would involve both the inclusion of all the hazards an emergency manager would have to address and a deep analysis of the science and/or history behind each one. Senior leaders need to be enabled with the tools to develop and set in motion strategic and holistic measures to address their threats, not just simple, one dimensional, preparedness and response operational activities. But the education in this theme should not end with just the delivery of deeper threat awareness. The emergency manager should also be taught high-quality research and analysis processes as well as strategic application tools in order to most effectively apply this type of knowledge.
Sociological and Psychological Considerations
One of the flawed and yet widely believed assertions in the disaster field is that citizens will panic during a disaster. The entertainment industry has propagated this myth for decades as fictional disaster after catastrophe depiction are rarely without a scene of people running through the streets, looting and rioting and generally behaving as individual beings bent on their own personal survival at the expense of all others. Reality has borne out that, except in extreme and sporadic circumstances, citizens will rush to the aid of their fellow man even at the risk of their own safety. Unfortunately, this misunderstanding of the psychology of disaster victims and the actual societal response to emergency situations is not just an unfortunate misinterpretation. Senior leaders in charge of preparing for disasters often presume that “panic avoidance” be a critical planning consideration for catastrophic scenarios, while the more probable challenge of managing masses of volunteers and self-responders is often ignored or minimized in preparation efforts. This is only one example of how a lack of understanding of the psychological and sociological realities of those emergency leaders are charged to protect can lead to ineffective response and recovery activities.
Senior emergency management leaders should possess a deeper understanding of how individuals “process” disaster scenarios as well as how to best connect with citizens on the front end of preparedness as well as in the recovery phase. What technique will encourage the most citizens to prepare for disasters they might face? Why are most public education campaigns only effective in a small percentage of those targeted? How will an “average” person react to an Emergency Alert System broadcast? Are Critical Incident Stress Debriefings helpful to responders and communities or do they also do more harm than good in an unacceptable number of those participating in them? The average emergency manager does not consider the psychological realities of the human mind when they promote and execute programs that are designed to encourage, prepare and direct individuals to not only do the right things before and during a disaster, but to assist them following the emergencies aftermath. Mental counseling efforts are an established component of a Disaster Field Office’s operations, but the importance, and therefore emphasis, to strongly support these activities may be absent due to a lack of education in this area. Efforts are stressed to rebuild a victim’s financial and structural circumstances after a disaster but the infinitely more important recovery of the emotional and mental health of a victim is not focused upon.
How groups of individuals and communities react to emergency messaging and disaster scenarios is also critically important to understand. Some neighborhoods vigorously seek out Community Emergency Response Team training while others decline the offer even though individual member’s perceptions of their risk to disaster events may be high. Employee groups of some companies and workers in high rise buildings collectively demand safety training while those elsewhere are apathetic, though not ignorant, to preparedness efforts. Understanding group dynamic and social interaction principles is vital in not only effective preparedness campaigns but just as important in the proper direction of communities during an event. This essential thematic area for higher education should include curriculum covering the psychological, sociological and physiological responses of individuals and groups to stressful and traumatic events. Effective emergency managers need to know how emergency directions, disaster scene environments and post-disaster assistance are mentally processed by those targeted and affected.
Prevention and Mitigation Principles
The ultimate purpose of any emergency management leader should be to make themselves and their organizations obsolete through the definitive application of prevention and mitigation measures. The balance of resources, attention and focus on responding and recovering from disasters significantly outweighs those spent on investments in either eliminating the threat in the first place or at least minimizing the consequences of the event. In the Homeland Security arena, initial funds and policies clearly directed the application of state and local efforts towards planning, training, and equipping to deal with the aftermath of an attack, not towards preventing one in the first place. Only recently has a policy and emphasis shift been made to invest more heavily in systems, doctrine and equipment that will stop an attack or harden the targets that are most likely at risk. In the natural hazard world, governments have been slightly more aggressive in mitigation emphasis. Flood hazard reductions, non-structural mitigation for earthquakes, and more comprehensive programs, such as Project Impact, have reduced and even eliminated the catastrophic consequences of potential hazards. The challenge, however, has always been that proof of successful preventive policies and investments are not always clear; for instance, if they are done well, nothing happens. Additionally, shifting the allocation of funds from response programs towards prevention are ill advised since the cost benefit of preventive efforts are rarely realized in the one fiscal cycle.
But this perceived inability to prove the benefits of mitigation actions should not be a barrier to advocating for the resources and policies to preventingthe bad things from happening in the first place.Emergency management leaders require a higher level of understanding of risk management, cost-benefit analysis, land use planning, terrorist strategies and counter-terrorism programs, critical infrastructure protection, vulnerability assessment processes and other areas that would enable a leader to advocate effectively for the application of preventive measures. An effective emergency manager should be able to successfully convince elected officials and executives that investment in prevention measures are an effective application of a jurisdiction’s or organization’s funds, even though the benefits may not be realized for several years. These investments may not “pay-off’ in a given term of office or may be so long term that the benefits are not perceived at all, because they occur after the knowledge of their initial application have passed from organizational memory. The point is that emergency management leaders must have the tools and education to argue for preventive policies regardless of the near-term political, economic and physical barriers that challenge their implementation.
Summary
Familiarity of emergency response operations, disaster rule applications, effective communications techniques, and executive administration are all examples of the basic knowledge that emergency managers must possess. But to be effective in the implementation of policies and actions that truly reduce the impacts of disasters; emergency leaders must be educated more intensely in the background of the hazards they face, the human reactions to these threats, and the tools to effect prevention measures that may eliminate the hazards or consequences from ever occurring in the first place. These three themes should not be delivered solely in one-time, individual courses; once taught, their essence and application should be weaved throughout the overall curriculum since their value is holisticin nature, not just single parts of the whole of effective public safety leadership.